Gossip Girl

New York Daily NewsCristina Kinon

While it remains to be seen if Gossip Girl will take the plot plunge "The O.C." did after its first season, the beginning here is encouraging.

Los Angeles TimesMary McNamara

Gossip Girl is eye candy, and mind candy, as pretty as a perfectly prepared martini--one that some nasty, picture-perfect have-it-all may or may not have drugged.

Miami HeraldGlenn Garvin

Welcome to the tawdry, tantalizing and altogether terrific world of Gossip Girl.

TimeJames Poniewozik

Packing a sharp designer shiv, this clever saga of haves vs. have-mores proves the East Coast can be as enjoyably sudsy as the West.

Washington PostJohn Maynard

At times, it's overboard and maybe a bit giggle-inducing, like watching little kids play dress-up. But overboard is exactly where Gossip Girl wants to be--and what viewers must embrace when taking the guilty plunge.

USA TodayRobert Bianco

Some of the lines are witty, and while parents won't approve of all that goes on, the kids talk about much more than they actually do.

Entertainment WeeklyKen Tucker

The cast is as good as its target demo, but I admire its fleet pace and sly craft. [21 Sep 2007, p.72]

Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob Owen

Gossip Girl offers a fun, juicy mix of popular music and melodrama.

Boston GlobeMatthew Gilbert

Your feelings about Gossip Girl will depend on just how guilty you are willing to feel about your guilty pleasures. It can be entertaining to watch adults throw around money, attitude, and alcohol on soap operas; it can be grotesque to see teenagers doing the same things.

Newark Star-LedgerAlan Sepinwall

It's very well-done teen angst, but at the same time made me feel very old and slightly pervy while watching it.

NewsdayVerne Gay

Gossip Girl actually isn't bad by the standards of the medium--with "The Hills" pretty much being the standard--and it's even surprisingly competent.

The New York TimesAlessandra Stanley

It's a sleek, glossy, musically enhanced soap opera centered on wealthy, gorgeous high school students who connive and cavort to the sound of Rihanna, Justin Timberlake, Peter Bjorn and John, Angels & Airwaves, and Timbaland.

SlateTroy Patterson

The prep-school soap opera Gossip Girl is not as good--that is, not as bad, not quite so fabulously trashy--as the best-selling series of young-adult novels on which it's based.

VarietyBrian Lowry

Gossip Girl hardly breaks any new ground.

SalonHeather Havrilesky

Gossip Girl should be a good ride, at least until all the characters become more and more likable and there's no conflict or tension anymore, and then you have to kill off the weakest one just to get people to pay any attention.

San Francisco ChronicleTim Goodman

The main action is pretty much standard soap fare.

PopMattersMarisa LaScala

If you strip away the designer shoes and drinks, the show is left with all the hallmarks of a typical teen melodrama.

Seattle Post-IntelligencerMelanie McFarland

Gossip Girl lacks the heart, humor and sweetness that balanced out the soapy happenings on "The O.C."

New York MagazineJohn Leonard

I don’t care whether Serena (Blake Lively) and Blair (Leighton Meester) can ever be best friends again after what happened with Blair’s boyfriend before Serena ran off to boarding school is not just because I’m an old fart.

Chicago TribuneMaureen Ryan

But it's not just that the Gossip Girl cast lacks chemistry. Among these characters and threaded through these predictable, thin stories, there's precious little of anything that approaches sweetness, kindness, altruism or heart.

Chicago Sun-TimesDoug Elfman

It's one of the worst new series--but for its cardboard acting and writing, not for the morals.

New York PostLinda Stasi

It's a nasty piece of work filled with underage sex, vulgar, hateful kids and references to young girls that are flat-out ugly and disrespectful.

Detroit Free PressMike Duffy

Slick, cynical teen soap nonsense.

Philadelphia InquirerJonathan Storm

Gossip Girl is a bad mix of the popular book series by Cecily von Ziegesar and the production talents of Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, who made "The O.C."

Hollywood ReporterRay Richmond

It's so consumed with its of-the-moment zeitgeist embodiment that it forgets to give its characters any depth beyond their reshaped noses.

Kansas City StarAaron Barnhart

I hate it.